1963 film by Federico Fellini
For window system developed for the Plan 9, see
8½ (Plan 9)
.
8
+
1
⁄
2
|
---|
![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/46/8Mezzo.jpg) Theatrical release poster
|
Directed by
| Federico Fellini
|
---|
Screenplay by
| |
---|
Story by
|
- Federico Fellini
- Ennio Flaiano
|
---|
Produced by
| Angelo Rizzoli
|
---|
Starring
| |
---|
Cinematography
| Gianni Di Venanzo
|
---|
Edited by
| Leo Catozzo
|
---|
Music by
| Nino Rota
|
---|
Production
companies
| |
---|
Distributed by
| |
---|
Release dates
|
- 2 January 1963
(
1963-01-02
)
(
Acapulco
)
- 13 February 1963
(
1963-02-13
)
(Italy)
- 29 May 1963
(
1963-05-29
)
(France)
|
---|
Running time
| 138 minutes
|
---|
Countries
| |
---|
Language
| Italian
|
---|
Box office
| $3.5 million (US/Canada
rentals
)
[2]
|
---|
8
+
1
⁄
2
(Italian title:
Otto e mezzo
,
pronounced
[??tto
e
m?m?ddzo]
) is a 1963
comedy-drama
film directed and co-written (with
Tullio Pinelli
,
Ennio Flaiano
and
Brunello Rondi
) by
Federico Fellini
. The
metafictional
[3]
narrative centers on Guido Anselmi, (
Marcello Mastroianni
), a famous Italian film director who suffers from stifled creativity as he attempts to direct an epic science fiction film.
Claudia Cardinale
,
Anouk Aimee
,
Sandra Milo
,
Rossella Falk
,
Barbara Steele
, and
Eddra Gale
portray the various women in Guido's life. The film is shot in black and white by cinematographer
Gianni Di Venanzo
and features a score by
Nino Rota
, with costume and set designs by
Piero Gherardi
.
8
+
1
⁄
2
was critically acclaimed and won the
Academy Award
for
Best Foreign Language Film
and
Best Costume Design
(black-and-white). It is acknowledged as an
avant-garde
film
[4]
and a highly influential classic. It was ranked 10th on the
British Film Institute
's
The
Sight & Sound
Greatest Films of All Time 2012
critics' poll and 4th by directors.
[5]
[6]
It is listed on the Vatican's compilation of the 45 best films made before 1995, the 100th anniversary of cinema.
[7]
The film ranked 7th in
BBC
's 2018 list of
The 100 Greatest Foreign Language Films
voted by 209 film critics from 43 countries around the world.
[8]
It was included on the
Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage
's
100 Italian films to be saved
, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978".
[9]
It is considered to be one of the
greatest and most influential films of all time
.
Plot
[
edit
]
Guido Anselmi, a famous Italian film director, is suffering from "
director's block
". Stalled on his new
science fiction film
that includes
thinly veiled autobiographical
references, he has lost interest amidst artistic and marital difficulties. While attempting to recover from his anxieties at a luxurious spa, Guido hires a well-known critic to review his ideas for his film, but the critic blasts them. Guido has recurring visions of an Ideal Woman, whom he sees as key to his story. His mistress Carla comes to visit him, but Guido puts her in a separate hotel. The film production crew relocates to Guido's hotel in an unsuccessful attempt to get him to work on the film.
Guido admits to a cardinal that he is not happy. The cardinal offers little insight. Guido invites his estranged wife Luisa and her friends to join him. They dance, but Guido abandons her for his production crew. Guido confesses to his wife's best friend Rosella that he wanted to make a film that was pure and honest, but he is struggling with something honest to say. Carla surprises Guido, Luisa, and Rosella outside the hotel, and Guido claims that he and Carla ended their affair years earlier. Luisa and Rosella call him on the lie, and Guido slips into a fantasy world where he lords over a harem of women from his life, but a rejected showgirl starts a rebellion. The fantasy women attack Guido with harsh truths about himself and his sex life.
When Luisa sees how bitterly Guido represents her in the film, she declares that their marriage is over. Guido's Ideal Woman arrives in the form of an actress named Claudia. Guido explains that his film is about a burned-out man who finds salvation in this Ideal Woman. Claudia concludes that the protagonist is unsympathetic because he is incapable of love. Broken, Guido calls off the film, but the producer and the film's staff announce a press conference. Guido attempts to escape from the journalists and eventually imagines shooting himself in the head. Guido realizes he was attempting to solve his personal confusion by creating a film to help others, when instead he needs to accept his life for what it is. He asks Luisa for her assistance in doing so. Carla tells him that she figured out what he was trying to say: that Guido cannot do without the people in his life. The men and women hold hands and walk briskly around the circle with Guido and Luisa joining them last.
Cast
[
edit
]
- Marcello Mastroianni
as Guido Anselmi, a film director
- Claudia Cardinale
as Claudia, a film star Guido casts as his Ideal Woman
- Anouk Aimee
as Luisa Anselmi, Guido's estranged wife
- Sandra Milo
as Carla, Guido's mistress
- Rossella Falk
as Rossella, Luisa's best friend and Guido's confidante
- Barbara Steele
as Gloria Morin, Mezzabotta's new young girlfriend
- Madeleine Lebeau
as Madeleine, a French actress
- Caterina Boratto
as a mysterious lady in the hotel
- Eddra Gale
as La Saraghina, a prostitute
- Guido Alberti
as Pace, a film producer
- Mario Conocchia
[
it
]
as a fictionalized version of himself, Guido's production assistant
- Bruno Agostini as a fictionalized version of himself, the production director
- Cesarino Miceli Picardi as a fictionalized version of himself, the production supervisor
- Jean Rougeul
[
fr
]
as Carini Daumier, a film critic
- Mario Pisu
as Mario Mezzabotta, Guido's friend
- Yvonne Casadei as Jacqueline Bonbon, a former cabaret dancer
- Ian Dallas
as Maurice, Maya's assistant
- Mino Doro
as Alberto, Claudia's agent
- Nadia Sanders as Nadine
- Edy Vessel
as a mannequin
- Eugene Walter
as an American journalist
- Mary Indovino as Maya, the clairvoyant
- Giuditta Rissone
as Guido's mother
- Annibale Ninchi
as Guido's father
- Olimpia Cavalli
as Olimpia (uncredited)
- Ferdinand Guillaume
as the clown (uncredited)
- Maria Antonietta Beluzzi
as a prostitute (uncredited)
Themes
[
edit
]
8
+
1
⁄
2
is about the struggles involved in the creative process, both technical and personal, and the problems artists face when expected to deliver something personal and profound with intense public scrutiny, on a constricted schedule, while simultaneously having to deal with their own personal relationships. It is, in a larger sense, about the search for meaning within a difficult, fragmented life. Like several Italian films of the period (most evident in the films of Fellini's contemporary,
Michelangelo Antonioni
),
8
+
1
⁄
2
also is about the alienating effects of
modernization
.
[10]
At this point, Fellini had directed six feature films:
Lo sceicco bianco
(1952),
I Vitelloni
(1953),
La Strada
(1954),
Il bidone
(1955),
Le notti di Cabiria
(1957), and
La Dolce Vita
(1960). He had co-directed
Luci del varieta
(
Variety Lights
) (1950) with
Alberto Lattuada
, and had directed two short segments,
Un'Agenzia Matrimoniale
(
A Marriage Agency
) in the
omnibus film
L'amore in citta
(
Love in the City
) (1953) and
Le Tentazioni del Dottor Antonio
from the omnibus film
Boccaccio '70
(1962). The title is in keeping with Fellini's self-reflexive theme: by his count it was his eighth-and-a-half film.
[11]
The working title for
8
+
1
⁄
2
was
La bella confusione
(
The Beautiful Confusion
) proposed by co-screenwriter,
Ennio Flaiano
, but Fellini then "had the simpler idea (which proved entirely wrong) to call it
Comedy
".
[12]
According to Italian writer
Alberto Arbasino
,
8
+
1
⁄
2
used techniques similar to, and has parallels with,
Robert Musil
's novel
The Man Without Qualities
(1930).
[13]
The film is unusual in that it is a film about making a film, and the film that is being made is the film that the audience is viewing. An example is the dream sequence of "Guido's Harem" where Guido is bathed and carried in white linen by all the women from the film, only to have the women protest for being sent to live upstairs in the house when they turn 30, and "Jacquilene Bonbon" does her last dance. The Guido's Harem scene is immediately followed by the "Screen Test" depicting the same actors in a theater, each taking the stage for a screen test, being chosen to act for the very scene the audience just watched. This mirror of mirrors is further emphasized at the end where the director Guido sits at the table of the press conference, where the entire table is a mirror reflecting the director in it.
Production
[
edit
]
Marcello Mastroianni
as Guido Anselmi
In an October 1960 letter to his colleague Brunello Rondi, Fellini first outlined his film ideas about a man suffering from a creative block: "Well then?a guy (a writer? any kind of professional man? a theatrical producer?) has to interrupt the usual rhythm of his life for two weeks because of a not-too-serious disease. It's a warning bell: something is blocking up his system."
[14]
Unclear about the script, its title, and his protagonist's profession, he scouted locations throughout Italy "looking for the film"
[15]
in the hope of resolving his confusion. Flaiano suggested
La bella confusione
(literally
The Beautiful Confusion
) as the film's title. Under pressure from his producers, Fellini finally settled on
8
+
1
⁄
2
, a
self-referential
title referring principally (but not exclusively)
[16]
to the number of films he had directed up to that time.
Giving the order to start production in spring 1962, Fellini signed deals with his producer Rizzoli, fixed dates, had sets constructed, cast Mastroianni,
Anouk Aimee
, and
Sandra Milo
in lead roles, and did screen tests at the Scalera Studios in Rome. He hired
cinematographer
Gianni Di Venanzo
, among key personnel. But apart from naming his hero Guido Anselmi, he still could not decide what his character did for a living.
[17]
The crisis came to a head in April when, sitting in his Cinecitta office, he began a letter to Rizzoli confessing he had "lost his film" and had to abandon the project. Interrupted by the chief machinist requesting he celebrate the launch of
8
+
1
⁄
2
, Fellini put aside the letter and went on the set. Raising a toast to the crew, he "felt overwhelmed by shame... I was in a no exit situation. I was a director who wanted to make a film he no longer remembers. And lo and behold, at that very moment everything fell into place. I got straight to the heart of the film. I would narrate everything that had been happening to me. I would make a film telling the story of a director who no longer knows what film he wanted to make".
[18]
Anouk Aimee as Luisa Anselmi
When shooting began on 9 May 1962,
Eugene Walter
recalled Fellini taking "a little piece of brown paper tape" and sticking it near the
viewfinder
of the
camera
. Written on it was
Ricordati che e un film comico
("Remember that this is a comic film").
[19]
Perplexed by the seemingly chaotic, incessant improvisation on the set, Deena Boyer, the director's American press officer at the time, asked for a rationale. Fellini told her that he hoped to convey the three levels "on which our minds live: the past, the present, and the conditional - the realm of fantasy".
[20]
8
+
1
⁄
2
was filmed in the spherical cinematographic process, using 35-millimeter film, and exhibited with an
aspect ratio
of 1.85:1. As with most Italian films of this period, the sound was entirely dubbed in afterwards; following a technique dear to Fellini, many lines of the dialogue were written only during post production, while the actors on the set mouthed random lines.
8
+
1
⁄
2
marks the first time that actress
Claudia Cardinale
was allowed to dub her own dialogue; previously her voice was thought to be too throaty and, coupled with her
Tunisian
accent, was considered undesirable.
[21]
This is Fellini's last black-and-white film.
[22]
In September 1962, Fellini shot the end of the film as initially written: Guido and his wife sit together in the restaurant car of a train bound for
Rome
. Lost in thought, Guido looks up to see all the characters of his film smiling ambiguously at him as the train enters a tunnel. Fellini then shot an alternative ending set around the spaceship on the beach at dusk but with the intention of using the scenes as a trailer for promotional purposes only. In the 2002 documentary
Fellini: I'm a Born Liar
, co-scriptwriter
Tullio Pinelli
explains how he warned Fellini to abandon the train sequence with its implicit theme of
suicide
for an upbeat ending.
[23]
Fellini accepted the advice, using the alternative beach sequence as a more harmonious and exuberant finale.
[24]
After shooting wrapped on 14 October,
Nino Rota
composed various circus marches and fanfares that would later become signature tunes of the maestro's cinema.
[25]
Soundtrack
[
edit
]
No.
|
Title
|
Composer
|
1.
|
La Passerella di Otto e Mezzo
|
Nino Rota
|
2a.
|
Cimitero
|
Nino Rota
|
2b.
|
Gigolette
|
Franz Lehar
|
2c.
|
Cadillac / Carlotta's Galop
|
Nino Rota
|
3.
|
E Poi (Walzer)
|
Nino Rota
|
4.
|
L'Illusionista
|
Nino Rota
|
5.
|
Concertino Alle Terme
|
Gioachino Rossini
and
Piotr I. Tchaikovsky
|
6.
|
Nell'Ufficio Produzione di Otto e Mezzo
|
Nino Rota
|
7.
|
Ricordi d'Infanza - Discesa al Fanghi
|
Nino Rota
|
8.
|
Guido e Luiza - Nostalgico Swing
|
Nino Rota
|
9.
|
Carlotta's Galop
|
Nino Rota
|
10.
|
L'Harem
|
Nino Rota
|
11a.
|
Rivolta nell'Harem
|
Richard Wagner
|
11b.
|
La Ballerina Pensionata (Ca C'Est Paris)
|
Jose Padilla Sanchez
|
11c.
|
La Conferenza Stampa del Regista
|
Nino Rota
|
12.
|
La Passerella di Addio
|
Nino Rota
|
Orchestra: Nino Rota
Reception
[
edit
]
Critical response
[
edit
]
First released in Italy on 14 February 1963,
8
+
1
⁄
2
received widespread acclaim, with reviewers hailing Fellini as "a genius possessed of a magic touch, a prodigious style".
[25]
Italian novelist and critic
Alberto Moravia
described the film's protagonist, Guido Anselmi, as "obsessed by eroticism, a sadist, a masochist, a self-mythologizer, an adulterer, a clown, a liar and a cheat. He's afraid of life and wants to return to his mother's womb ... In some respects, he resembles
Leopold Bloom
, the hero of
James Joyce
's
Ulysses
, and we have the impression that Fellini has read and contemplated this book. The film is introverted, a sort of private monologue interspersed with glimpses of reality .... Fellini's dreams are always surprising and, in a figurative sense, original, but his memories are pervaded by a deeper, more delicate sentiment. This is why the two episodes concerning the hero's childhood at the old country house in
Romagna
and his meeting with the woman on the beach in
Rimini
are the best of the film, and among the best of all Fellini's works to date".
[26]
Reviewing for
Corriere della Sera
, Giovanni Grazzini underlined that "the beauty of the film lies in its 'confusion'... a mixture of error and truth, reality and dream, stylistic and human values, and in the complete harmony between Fellini's cinematographic language and Guido's rambling imagination. It is impossible to distinguish Fellini from his fictional director and so Fellini's faults coincide with Guido's spiritual doubts. The
osmosis
between art and life is amazing. It will be difficult to repeat this achievement.
[27]
Fellini's genius shines in everything here, as it has rarely shone in the movies. There isn't a set, a character or a situation that doesn't have a precise meaning on the great stage that is
8
+
1
⁄
2
".
[28]
Mario Verdone of
Bianco e Nero
insisted the film was "like a brilliant improvisation ... The film became the most difficult feat the director ever tried to pull off. It is like a series of acrobats [sic] that a tightrope walker tries to execute high above the crowd, ... always on the verge of falling and being smashed on the ground. But at just the right moment, the acrobat knows how to perform the right somersault: with a push he straightens up, saves himself and wins".
[29]
8
+
1
⁄
2
screened at the
1963 Cannes Film Festival
in April to "almost universal acclaim"
[30]
and was Italy's official entry in the later
3rd Moscow International Film Festival
where it won the Grand Prize. French film director
Francois Truffaut
wrote: "Fellini's film is complete, simple, beautiful, honest, like the one Guido wants to make in
8
+
1
⁄
2
".
[31]
Premier Plan
critics Andre Bouissy and Raymond Borde argued that the film "has the importance, magnitude, and technical mastery of
Citizen Kane
. It has aged twenty years of the avant-garde in one fell swoop because it both integrates and surpasses all the discoveries of experimental cinema".
[32]
Pierre Kast of
Les
Cahiers du cinema
explained that "my admiration for Fellini is not without limits. For instance, I did not enjoy
La Strada
but I did
I Vitelloni
. But I think we must all admit that
8
+
1
⁄
2
, leaving aside for the moment all prejudice and reserve, is prodigious. Fantastic liberality, a total absence of precaution and hypocrisy, absolute dispassionate sincerity, artistic and financial courage these are the characteristics of this incredible undertaking".
[33]
The film ranked 10th on
Cahiers du Cinema
's
Top 10 Films of the Year List
in 1963.
[34]
Released in the United States on 25 June 1963 by
Joseph E. Levine
, who had bought the rights sight unseen, the film was screened at the Festival Theatre in
New York City
in the presence of Fellini and
Marcello Mastroianni
. The acclaim was unanimous with the exception of reviews by
Judith Crist
,
Pauline Kael
, and
John Simon
. Crist "didn't think the film touched the heart or moved the spirit".
[30]
Kael derided the film as a "structural disaster" while Simon considered it "a disheartening fiasco".
[35]
[36]
Newsweek
defended the film as "beyond doubt, a work of art of the first magnitude".
[30]
Bosley Crowther
praised it in
The New York Times
as "a piece of entertainment that will really make you sit up straight and think, a movie endowed with the challenge of a fascinating intellectual game ... If Mr. Fellini has not produced another masterpiece – another all-powerful exposure of Italy's ironic sweet life – he has made a stimulating contemplation of what might be called, with equal irony, a sweet guy".
[37]
Archer Winsten of the
New York Post
interpreted the film as "a kind of review and summary of Fellini's picture-making" but doubted that it would appeal as directly to the American public as
La Dolce Vita
had three years earlier: "This is a subtler, more imaginative, less sensational piece of work. There will be more people here who consider it confused and confusing. And when they do understand what it is about – the simultaneous creation of a work of art, a philosophy of living together in happiness, and the imposition of each upon the other, they will not be as pleased as if they had attended the exposition of an international scandal".
[38]
Audiences, however, loved it to such an extent that a company attempted to obtain the rights to mass-produce Guido Anselmi's black director's hat.
[35]
Fellini biographer
Hollis Alpert
noted that in the months following its release, critical commentary on
8
+
1
⁄
2
proliferated as the film "became an intellectual cud to chew on".
[39]
Philosopher and social critic
Dwight Macdonald
, for example, insisted it was "the most brilliant, varied, and entertaining movie since
Citizen Kane
".
[39]
In 1987, a group of thirty European intellectuals and filmmakers voted
Otto e mezzo
the most important European film ever made.
[40]
In 1993,
Chicago Sun-Times
film reviewer
Roger Ebert
wrote that "despite the efforts of several other filmmakers to make their own versions of the same story, it remains the definitive film about director's block".
[41]
8½
was voted the best foreign (i.e. non-Swedish) sound film with 21 votes in a 1964 poll of 50 Swedish film professionals organized by Swedish film magazine
Chaplin
[
sv
]
.
[42]
The Village Voice
ranked the film at number 112 in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list in 1999, based on a poll of critics.
[43]
Entertainment Weekly
voted it at No. 36 on their list of
100 Greatest Movies of All Time
.
[44]
In 2000, Ebert added it to his "
Great Movies
" list, calling it "the best film ever made about filmmaking", concluding "I have seen
8
+
1
⁄
2
over and over again, and my appreciation only deepens. It does what is almost impossible: Fellini is a magician who discusses, reveals, explains and deconstructs his tricks, while still fooling us with them. He claims he doesn't know what he wants or how to achieve it, and the film proves he knows exactly, and rejoices in his knowledge."
[45]
8
+
1
⁄
2
is a fixture on the British Film Institute's
Sight & Sound
critics' and directors' polls of the top 10 films ever made. The film ranked 4th and 5th on critics' poll in 1972
[46]
and 1982
[47]
respectively. It ranked 2nd on the magazine's 1992
[48]
and 2002
[49]
Directors' Top Ten Poll
and 8th on the 2002
Critics' Top Ten Poll
.
[50]
It was slightly lower in the 2012 directors' poll, 4th
[6]
and 10th on the 2012 critics' poll.
[5]
The film was included in
Time
'
s
All-Time 100 best movies
list in 2005.
[51]
The film was voted at No. 46 on the list of "100 Greatest Films" by the prominent French magazine
Cahiers du cinema
in 2008.
[52]
In 2010, the film was ranked #62 in
Empire
magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema".
[53]
It was also ranked number 1 when the
Museum of Cinematography in Łod?
[
pl
]
asked 279 Polish film professionals (filmmakers, critics, and professors) to vote for the best films in 2015.
[54]
On the review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes
,
8
+
1
⁄
2
has an approval rating of 97% based on 61 reviews, with an average score of 8.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Inventive, thought-provoking, and funny, 8 1/2 represents the arguable peak of Federico Fellini's many towering feats of cinema."
[55]
On
Metacritic
, the film has a weighted average score of 93 out of 100 based on 23 critic's reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".
[56]
Awards and nominations
[
edit
]
8
+
1
⁄
2
won two
Academy Awards
for
Best Foreign Language Film
and
Best Costume Design
(black-and-white) while garnering three other nominations for
Best Director
,
Best Original Screenplay
, and
Best Art Direction
(black-and-white).
[57]
The
New York Film Critics Circle
also named
8
+
1
⁄
2
best foreign language film
in 1964. The
Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists
awarded the film all seven prizes for
director
,
producer
, original story, screenplay,
music
, cinematography, and best
supporting actress
(
Sandra Milo
). It also garnered nominations for
Best Actor
, Best Costume Design, and Best Production Design.
At the Saint Vincent Film Festival, it was awarded Grand Prize over
Luchino Visconti
's
Il gattopardo
(
The Leopard
). The film screened in April at the
1963 Cannes Film Festival
[58]
to "almost universal acclaim but no prize was awarded because it was shown outside the competition. Cannes rules demanded exclusivity in competition entries, and
8
+
1
⁄
2
was already earmarked as Italy's official entry in the later Moscow festival".
[59]
Presented on 18 July 1963 to an audience of 8,000 in the
Kremlin
's conference hall,
8
+
1
⁄
2
won the prestigious Grand Prize at the
3rd Moscow International Film Festival
[60]
to acclaim that, according to Fellini biographer
Tullio Kezich
, worried the
Soviet
festival authorities: the applause was "a cry for freedom".
[35]
Jury members included
Stanley Kramer
,
Jean Marais
,
Satyajit Ray
, and screenwriter
Sergio Amidei
.
[61]
The film was nominated for a
BAFTA Award
in
Best Film from any Source
category in
1964
. It won the
Best European Film
Award at
Bodil Awards
in 1964. The film also won
National Board of Review Award for Best Foreign Language Film
.
Influence
[
edit
]
Later in the year of the film's 1963 release, a group of young Italian writers founded
Gruppo '63
, a literary collective of the
neoavanguardia
composed of novelists, reviewers, critics, and poets inspired by
8
+
1
⁄
2
and
Umberto Eco
's seminal essay,
Opera aperta
(
Open Work
).
[62]
"Imitations of
8
+
1
⁄
2
pile up by directors all over the world", wrote Fellini biographer
Tullio Kezich
.
[63]
The following is Kezich's short-list of the films it has inspired:
Mickey One
(
Arthur Penn
, 1965),
Alex in Wonderland
(
Paul Mazursky
, 1970),
Beware of a Holy Whore
(
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
, 1971),
Day for Night
(
Francois Truffaut
, 1974),
All That Jazz
(
Bob Fosse
, 1979),
Stardust Memories
(
Woody Allen
, 1980),
Sogni d'oro
(
Nanni Moretti
, 1981),
Planet Parade
(
Vadim Abdrashitov
, 1984),
A King and His Movie
(
Carlos Sorin
, 1986), 1993),
Living in Oblivion
(
Tom DiCillo
, 1995),
8
+
1
⁄
2
Women
(
Peter Greenaway
, 1999), and
8
+
1
⁄
2
$
(Grigori Konstantinopolsky, 1999).
Martin Scorsese
included
8
+
1
⁄
2
on his ballot for the
Sight & Sound
poll.
[64]
In conversation with the
Criterion Collection
, he named it one of his favorites:
What would Fellini do after
La dolce vita
? We all wondered. How would he top himself? Would he even want to top himself? Would he shift gears? Finally, he did something that no one could have anticipated at the time. He took his own artistic and life situation?that of a filmmaker who had eight and a half films to his name (episodes for two omnibus films and a shared credit with Alberto Lattuada on Variety Lights counted for him as one and a half films, plus seven), achieved international renown with his last feature and felt enormous pressure when the time came for a follow-up?and he built a movie around it.
8½
has always been a touchstone for me, in so many ways?the freedom, the sense of invention, the underlying rigor and the deep core of longing, the bewitching, physical pull of the camera movements and the compositions...But it also offers an uncanny portrait of being the artist of the moment, trying to tune out all the pressure and the criticism and the adulation and the requests and the advice, and find the space and the calm to simply listen to oneself. The picture has inspired many movies over the years (including
Alex in Wonderland
,
Stardust Memories
, and
All That Jazz
), and we’ve seen the dilemma of Guido, the hero played by Marcello Mastroianni, repeated many times over in reality?look at the life of
Bob Dylan
during the period we covered in
No Direction Home
, to take just one example. Like with
The Red Shoes
, I look at it again every year or so, and it’s always a different experience.
[65]
Musical adaptation
[
edit
]
The Tony-winning 1982
Broadway
musical
Nine
(score by
Maury Yeston
, book by
Arthur Kopit
) is based on the film, underscoring Guido's obsession with women by making him the only male character. The original production, directed by
Tommy Tune
, starred
Raul Julia
as Guido,
Anita Morris
as Carla,
Liliane Montevecchi
as Liliane LaFleur, Guido's producer and
Karen Akers
as Luisa. A 2003 Broadway revival starred
Antonio Banderas
,
Jane Krakowski
,
Mary Stuart Masterson
and
Chita Rivera
. The play was adapted into a
2009 film of the same name
, directed by
Rob Marshall
and starring
Daniel Day-Lewis
as Guido alongside
Nicole Kidman
,
Marion Cotillard
,
Judi Dench
,
Kate Hudson
,
Penelope Cruz
,
Sophia Loren
, and
Fergie
.
[66]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"8½"
.
BFI Film & Television Database
.
British Film Institute
. Archived from
the original
on 6 August 2011
. Retrieved
27 December
2012
.
- ^
"Top Rental Films of 1963",
Variety
, 8 January 1964 p 37
- ^
"How '8½' is Federico Fellini's homage to the constructed image"
. 14 February 2021
. Retrieved
2 April
2022
.
- ^
Alberto Arbasino
(1963), review of
8
+
1
⁄
2
in
Il Giorno
, 6 March 1963
- ^
a
b
"The 100 Greatest Films of All Time | Sight & Sound"
.
British Film Institute
. Archived from
the original
on 2 September 2012.
- ^
a
b
"Directors' 10 Greatest Films of All Time | Sight & Sound"
.
British Film Institute
. Archived from
the original
on 9 March 2021
. Retrieved
13 September
2020
.
- ^
"Vatican Best Films List"
. USCCB. Archived from
the original
on 23 July 2010
. Retrieved
25 July
2010
.
- ^
"The 100 Greatest Foreign Language Films"
.
bbc
. 29 October 2018
. Retrieved
10 January
2021
.
- ^
"Ecco i cento film italiani da salvare Corriere della Sera"
.
www.corriere.it
. Retrieved
11 March
2021
.
- ^
"Screening the Past"
.
Archived
from the original on 15 September 2007
. Retrieved
9 September
2007
.
- ^
Bondanella,
The Cinema of Federico Fellini
, 175
- ^
Quoted in Kezich, 234
- ^
Gabriele Pedulla,
Alberto Arbasino
[2000]
"Interviste ?Sull'albero di ciliegie" ("On the Cherry Tree")
in
CONTEMPORANEA Rivista di studi sulla letteratura e sulla comunicazione
, Volume 1, 2003. Q: In some of your texts written during the 60 – I'm thinking above all of
Certi romanzi
– critical reflections on questions of the novel [...] are always interlaced in both an implicit and explicit way with reflections on cinema. In particular, it seems to me that your affinity with Fellini is especially significant: for example, your review of
Otto e mezzo
in
Il Giorno
. A: Reading Musil, we discovered parallels and similar procedures. But without being able to establish, either then or today, how much there was of Flaiano and how much, on the other hand, was of [Fellini's] own intuition.
- ^
Affron, 227
- ^
Alpert, 159
- ^
Kezich, 234 and Affron, 3-4
- ^
Alpert, 160
- ^
Fellini,
Comments on Film
, 161-62
- ^
Eugene Walter, "Dinner with Fellini",
The Transatlantic Review
, Autumn 1964. Quoted in Affron, 267
- ^
Alpert, 170
- ^
8
+
1
⁄
2
, Criterion Collection DVD, featured commentary track.
- ^
Newton, Michael (15 May 2015).
"Fellini's 8½ ? a masterpiece by cinema's ultimate dreamer"
.
The Guardian
.
- ^
"The suicide theme is so overwhelming," Pinelli told Fellini, "that you'll crush your film." Cited in
Fellini: I'm a Born Liar
(2002), directed by
Damian Pettigrew
.
- ^
Alpert, 174-175, and Kezich, 245. The documentary
L'Ultima sequenza
(2003) also discusses the lost sequence.
- ^
a
b
Kezich, 245
- ^
Moravia's review first published in
L'Espresso
(Rome) on 17 February 1963. Quoted in Fava and Vigano, 115?116
- ^
Grazzini's review first published in
Corriere della Sera
(Milan) on 16 February 1963. Quoted in Fava and Vigano, 116
- ^
This translation of Grazzini's review quoted in Affron, 255
- ^
Affron, 255
- ^
a
b
c
Alpert, 180
- ^
Truffaut's review first published in
Lui
(Paris), 1 July 1963. Affron, 257
- ^
First published in
Premier Plan
(Paris), 30 November 1963. Affron, 257
- ^
First published in
Les Cahiers du Cinema
(Paris), July 1963. Fava and Vigano, 116
- ^
Johnson, Eric C.
"Cahiers du Cinema: Top Ten Lists 1951?2009"
.
alumnus.caltech.edu
. Archived from
the original
on 27 March 2012
. Retrieved
17 December
2017
.
- ^
a
b
c
Kezich, 247
- ^
John Simon considered the film's originality was compromised "because the 'dance of life' at the end was suggested by Bergman's dance of death in
The Seventh Seal
(which Fellini had not seen)". Quoted in Alpert, 181
- ^
First published in the
NYT
, 26 June 1963. Fava and Vigano, 118
- ^
First published in the
New York Post
, 26 June 1963. Fava and Vigano, 118.
- ^
a
b
Alpert, 181
- ^
Bondanella,
The Films of Federico Fellini
, 93.
- ^
Ebert,
"Fellini's
8½
"
Archived
16 September 2012 at the
Wayback Machine
,
Chicago Sun-Times
(7 May 1993). Retrieved 21 December 2008.
- ^
"De basta filmerna".
Chaplin
. Swedish Film Institute. November 1964. pp. 333?334.
- ^
"Take One: The First Annual Village Voice Film Critics' Poll"
.
The Village Voice
. 1999. Archived from
the original
on 26 August 2007
. Retrieved
27 July
2006
.
- ^
"Entertainment Weekly's 100 Greatest Movies of All Time"
.
Filmsite.org
.
Archived
from the original on 31 March 2014
. Retrieved
19 January
2009
.
- ^
Ebert, Roger.
"8 1/2 movie review & film summary (1963) | Roger Ebert"
.
rogerebert.com/
.
- ^
"The Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll: 1972"
.
bfi.org
. Archived from
the original
on 8 October 2014
. Retrieved
13 May
2021
.
- ^
"The Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll: 1982"
.
bfi.org
. Archived from
the original
on 8 October 2014
. Retrieved
13 May
2021
.
- ^
"Sight & Sound top 10 poll 1992"
.
BFI
. Archived from
the original
on 18 June 2012
. Retrieved
17 February
2015
.
- ^
"Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll 2002 The Rest of Director's List"
.
old.bfi.org.uk
. Archived from
the original
on 1 February 2017
. Retrieved
12 May
2021
.
- ^
"The Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll 2002 The Rest of Critic's List"
.
old.bfi.org.uk
. Archived from
the original
on 13 August 2016
. Retrieved
12 May
2021
.
- ^
Schickel, Richard (13 January 2010).
"
8½
"
.
Time
.
- ^
"Cahiers du cinema's 100 Greatest Films"
. 23 November 2008.
- ^
"The 100 Best Films of World Cinema"
.
Empire
.
62. 8½
- ^
*
"Wyniki ankiety: 12 filmow na 120-lecie kina"
.
Muzeum Kinematografii w Łodzi
.
Archived
from the original on 20 July 2016
. Retrieved
14 January
2017
.
- ^
"8 1/2"
.
Rotten Tomatoes
.
- ^
"8½"
.
Metacritic
.
- ^
"The 36th Academy Awards (1964) Nominees and Winners"
.
oscars.org
. Retrieved
3 November
2011
.
- ^
"Festival de Cannes: 8½"
.
festival-cannes.com
. Archived from
the original
on 19 January 2012
. Retrieved
27 February
2009
.
- ^
Alpert, 180.
- ^
"3rd Moscow International Film Festival (1963)"
.
MIFF
. Archived from
the original
on 16 January 2013
. Retrieved
26 November
2012
.
- ^
Kezich, 248
- ^
Kezich, 246
- ^
Kezich, 249
- ^
"Martin Scorsese's Top 10"
. British Film Institute.
- ^
"Martin Scorsese's Top 10"
. The Criterion Collection.
- ^
Kezich, 249-250
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- Affron, Charles.
8
+
1
⁄
2
: Federico Fellini, Director
. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1989.
- Alpert, Hollis
.
Fellini: A Life
. New York: Paragon House, 1988.
- Bondanella, Peter.
The Cinema of Federico Fellini
. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
- Bondanella, Peter.
The Films of Federico Fellini
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
- Fava, Claudio and Aldo Vigano.
The Films of Federico Fellini
. New York: Citadel Press, 1990.
- Fellini, Federico.
Comments on Film
. Ed. Giovanni Grazzini. Trans. Joseph Henry. Fresno: The Press of California State University at Fresno, 1988.
- Kezich, Tullio
.
Federico Fellini: His Life and Work
. New York: Faber and Faber, 2006.
External links
[
edit
]
Wikiquote has quotations related to
8½
.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
8½
.
Awards for
8½
|
---|
|
---|
1947?1955
(Honorary)
| |
---|
1956?1975
| |
---|
1976?2000
| |
---|
2001?present
| |
---|
|
---|
1947?1960
| |
---|
1961?1980
| |
---|
1981?2000
| |
---|
2001?2020
| |
---|
2021?present
| |
---|
|
---|
1959?1967
Grand Prix
| |
---|
1969?1987
Golden Prize
| |
---|
1989?present
Golden St. George
| |
---|
|
---|
1934?1950
| |
---|
1951?1975
| |
---|
1976?2000
| |
---|
2001?present
| |
---|
|
---|
1937?1977
| |
---|
1978?2000
| |
---|
2001?present
| |
---|
|
|
---|
As director
| |
---|
As writer only
| |
---|
Related
| |
---|
|
---|
International
| |
---|
National
| |
---|
Other
| |
---|